My first reading of Tolstoy affected me as a revelation from heaven, as the trumpet of the judgment. What he made me feel was notthe desire to imitate, but the conviction that imitation was futile.

A tragic irony of life is that we so often achieve success or financial independence after the chief reason for which we sought it has passed away.

The share of the sympathetic publisher in the author's success - the true success so different from the ephemeral - is apt to be overlooked in these blatant days, so it is just as well that some of us should keep it in mind.

The only natural human beings seem to be those who are making trouble.

Evidently, whatever else marriage might prevent, it was not a remedy for isolation of spirit.

I was always a feminist, for I liked intellectual revolt as much as I disliked physical violence. On the whole, I think women havelost something precious, but have gained, immeasurably, by the passing of the old order.

The only difference between a rut and a grave are the dimensions.